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Audition woes start well before the audition

06-27-2014, 11:23 AM

So we're holding auditions in a few weeks to fill out the remaining slots in the band. We had about a dozen people lined up, almost all people we know personally and have jammed with before, who all definitely wanted to take part. I collected all the email addresses, made sure they knew I'd be sending out information, and last weekend sent out the message, giving several weeks for them to get used to the material. A few brief statements about the band, when the auditions will be, what we want, and a link to a dropbox folder where I've put three audition songs and two sound reference tracks with a one-line description of each along the lines of: we want to sound like this, this is what I mean by shoegaze, this is how we'll treat this song, etc.. As an old-school email user, I even got it approved by our text-generation drummer for being concise and within attention span.

And ending the first two-line paragraph was a "please reply letting us know what slots you are interested in, and we'll send out directions and times." With so many people interested, we were planning to divide into groups and stagger times so no-one has to sit around for hours waiting to play. You know, being as nice as we can to the people who are making the effort to come audition with us.

Within a day, I had replies. Exactly two of them: one from the guy I haven't met but came recommended, and one from another guy who at first we thought might not be interested in the music. Silence from everyone else. And remember we collected email addresses personally from each of them for the explicit purpose of sending them this very email.

If I can't send out (short and to the point) emails to the band and get them acted on promptly, running the band will essentially be impossible. "To get your pass for playing festival X, go to this site and enter this information or they won't let you in" will lead to only half the band showing up. Not reading a booking email will lead to them setting up schedule conflicts. I'm just not willing to deal with that level of irresponsibility in this band. I'm quite willing to inflict our "interested" friends with the consequences of not replying (i.e. you don't get an audition slot). Do they perhaps think they're owed a slot, that it doesn't apply to them, or that I can't find other good musicians in a market as rich as this one?

I really don't get it. And I'm learning early not to care enough to try to "get it."

Well....they ARE musicians. So flakiness has to be expected in many cases.

I've found texting is a better method for getting quicker responses. The "I didn't get it" or "I haven't checked it in a few days" excuses don't really hold up.

But yes...I've also found that the audition process is the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff. If they are flaky about auditioning, it isn't going to improve once they actually join the band.

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Might have been worth a simultaneous heads-up text message -- "check your e-mail, I just sent the details we discussed" or some such -- but maybe you've already separated some wheat from some chaff. Life's too short to spend time arguing somebody into accepting an opportunity they're apparently not warm to.

Old guy, just trying to play through the arthritis...
- Balance is a virtue; loud for its own sake is not... and loud won't fix bad
- I may not interpret ridiculous, crazy, or stupid the way you intended
- Common retail products are never awesome (thermo-nuclear probably is, though)
Assume the requisite list of stuff...

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we even run into this in my band among supposed "professionals"....Flakes....Texting IS the best method ALONG with the Email so they can't ever say they don't know..I always say if I don't hear from you I'll assume it's fine, or you're in etc etc...Yes..Musicians are flakes.

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People in general can be flakes. But it is complete BS to act like that behavior is to be expected and accepted. Anyone interested in the gig will be considerate and professional. If they act like high school kids now, they will only get worse once they are in the band.

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I do think it may be a generational thing. A lot of the younger crowd checks text religiously but won't check email for days or weeks. Our singer will reply to texts right away but an email will languish for weeks unless someone says "check your email."

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We just sent out a "check your email" text. It turns out a couple of them didn't receive it because they gave us the wrong email address.

On my drummer's phone, when he gets an email it sounds a ringtone; sometimes he doesn't even bother to figure out whether it's an email or text he received, since they look essentially the same to him. How come the rest of the smartphone generation don't do that too?

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We just sent out a "check your email" text. It turns out a couple of them didn't receive it because they gave us the wrong email address.

On my drummer's phone, when he gets an email it sounds a ringtone; sometimes he doesn't even bother to figure out whether it's an email or text he received, since they look essentially the same to him. How come the rest of the smartphone generation don't do that too?

As far them looking the same to him, you can set up the phones to have different rings for emails and texts so you know the difference. I suspect most people do this.

People see what they want to see for the most part. My young singer is glued to her phone like every other young person (oh who am I kidding--I'm glued to mine, too, these days because I conduct a lot of business from it), but MY texts and emails to her often go hours before they get responded to.

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If someone has issues responding, it's clear they just don't think THAT highly of the project, you, or whatever. I take this stuff at face value and simply back off- If someone really did want it and had a reasonable excuse for slacking, then they will seek me out. Otherwise, they are eventually a waste of time and effort

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And so... 8 people lined up for the auditions today, which we scheduled in two groups of 4. We provide beer and cook out between the sessions.

One person told me yesterday he couldn't come.

Five people simply didn't show, despite repeated emails, texts, and phone calls during the week. I guess not even Free Beer was enough.

Fortunately, the two who did show were awesome. Got ourselves a lead singer and a guitarist. Spent the whole day playing and jamming and just clicked completely, all on the same page with the music and band direction.